


Limbs as Delicate as an Eyelid

by motleystitches (furius)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate History, Attempted Rape, Dubious Consent, Falling In Love, First Time, M/M, Mad Science, Molestation, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-02
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-30 12:46:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furius/pseuds/motleystitches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Events of XMFC told in an alpha/omega universe where Erik is an omega and Charles is an alpha. </p><p>Heed the warnings.</p><p>Kink meme prompt: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/7634.html?thread=12815314#t12815314</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When the Russians came to liberate the camps, Shaw and Erik were already on their way out of Germany.

“Switzerland, perhaps,” Shaw had said, speculative over a train schedule. Erik was sixteen. His passport said he was thirteen and the custom officer glanced at the boy wearing a man’s threadbare suit and a desperate expression and granted him entry.

It was both better and worse in Switzerland than in Germany.They lived in a large old house in the country. The furniture had seen grander days. The servants were quiet and looked like they came with the house, with faded clothing and lined faces. Erik was deposited in the front hall with the luggage before Shaw gave a series of terse instructions and left again. Erik was tired, hungry, and miserable. The cooks and the maids fussed over him with food and pillows and blankets. The attention scared him, so did the bedroom he slept in alone. The windows and the doors were bolted and locked. Nights were deadly silent except for the strange animal calls from the surrounding forest. He still expected the pain he never accustomed himself to to come, but every time Shaw came back and summoned him, it would be to the study with its stacks of books, boxes and crates, and, noticeably, no metal. Erik would stand there, shivering a little standing on the carpet though the house was warm.

“Little Erik,” Shaw said one day; his stays had been growing longer, the books were all on shelves, “I’ve been neglecting your education. I’m told you haven’t spoken. I don’t think you’ve forgotten German, but we can’t have you run wild.” He tsked, pointedly looked at the figure wearing a loose shirt and a pair of too-big trousers held together by a belt. A hot flood shame and fear rushed over Erik. Only his feet were bare, but he felt naked, as if Shaw’s stare had penetrated clothing and found him wanting. “Perhaps a tutor for French, another for English. It might be too late for mathematics, but we can try. It would keep you occupied.”

And so tutors were hired and books were given from Shaw’s own library. Erik wasn’t stupid but he learned slowly, sullenly, almost daring Shaw to do something. Shaw hadn’t done anything. It worried him, the anticipation gnawed on the edge of his mind. He startled at the slightest noise. Once his French tutor caught him absent minded and brought down a ruler sharply on the desk. Erik cringed at the sharp smack and returned his attention to the verb conjugations, his heart racing for the rest of the day. The next day, he had a different tutor.

“You shouldn’t be frightened,” Shaw informed him at one of their weekly meetings, which frightened Erik the most. They always had dinner together the same evening. “You should have some manners,” Shaw said while Erik sat, stone faced, wondering how a house could be despoiled entirely of metal so that even the cutlery was wood. He kept his manners, because he wasn’t stupid to do otherwise.

Men Erik saw in Germany gradually trickled in for those dinners, conversation, and sometimes, to visit Erik. Erik had new clothes in Switzerland, suits tailored to fit his growing frame, and new shoes whenever a pair pinched his feet. It was somehow worse when he had to strip them and lay on the cold metal table in the basement, which had been partly converted to the medical labs Erik knew though there was a large ominous box that disoriented Erik every time he looked at it. They commented over him, examined his teeth, measured his heartrate, touched his arms, measured the length of his legs, the width of his ribcage as he breathed, pin-pricks of calipers cold against his skin, and even used a tape measure. They spoke in French and English and what Erik would later know to be Latin. And often, there would be arguments.

Shaw was always at those sessions, one hand on Erik’s shoulder, keeping him still because the leather-straps always had some slack to them. The debates grew increasingly heated and as Erik’s understanding improved, he learned that funds were running low and he, disappointingly, was still “unknown” and “undeveloped”. The idea that it was because of his mutation was dismissed outright by Shaw. He cited Erik’s childhood starvation as if it was someone else’s fault. More time was deemed necessary.

“I think you’d like that, Erik,” he said, reverting to German and telling Erik to dress. The expression was almost back to the menace Erik remembered. “I don’t.”

They arrived in spring and spent two winters in that house. After a year, another tutor was hired to teach him calisthenics and watched him as he ran laps around the house and hauled buckets from the well. Erik was growing restless as he grew stronger. For lack of anything else to do, he read voraciously. Discovering an aptitude for mathematics, he looked at maps and began to contemplate escape as more than a fantasy.

Shaw was often away. Erik didn’t trust Shaw’s servants, but he thought he could begin to trust himself. Shaw hadn’t experimented or asked Erik to exercise his power since they left Germany, but Erik thought could feel the humming of the cast-iron pots and pans in the kitchen, the copper piping in the walls, and metallic edge of the axes in the sheds. The metal felt like it was waiting, familiar friends with outstretched hands. The sense of metal was ever present and Erik thought that he reached out, they would listen to his call. That it wouldn’t fail him again, as it did when he had hurled a bullet into Shaw when Shaw grabbed his arm and said, “You’re my son and you’re coming with me.”

He was watched, of course, but he knew with absolute certainty he could be angry enough, and violent enough, even against his tutors if they tried to stop him. There were forests all around them, but it must be better than staying with Shaw. No forest went on forever.

On the day he planned his escape, Shaw returned unexpectedly and there were other men with him, most of them were strangers. He must’ve known something. In Erik’s eyes perhaps, or something in the set of his shoulders.

“Gentlemen,” he announced, walking over quickly and grabbing Erik’s arm by the elbow, “this is Erik.”

“He looks...young,” one of the men said, sniffing the air, “and nothing very extraordinary. Pretty eyes, perhaps.”

“I assure you, he is as extraordinary as they come.”

“I thought you a man of science, not a salesman, Schmidt.”

Shaw was displeased. His hand on Erik’s elbow tightened. He could break it easily, Erik knew, and he probably would. It had been a very long time since he had seen Shaw this angry.Erik hated himself for being afraid of his anger. He wouldn’t be able to survive in the wild with a broken arm.

“Has he even had his first estrus yet?” One of the others asked, he licked his lips. “I do you a courtesy, Sebastian, of coming out here at all, so I’d like you to extend the same to me and answer truthfully.”

“Of course,” Shaw said through gritted teeth. “And no, not yet. He’s unspoiled, untied.”

“Battlefield waifs often can’t; early deprivation often render permanent damage to their reproductive systems,” one of the other man murmured, “and one further point, we can all see he’s not your son, Sebastian.”

“Nonetheless, I have other means of satisfaction. My colleagues can attest to his status and you’ve brought your own doctors if you doubt my word.”

Erik was used to people talking as if he wasn’t there, but this particular conversation was growing more alarming by the moment. The last session was only a fortnight ago. They had drugged him for it, which he never knew whether to be thankful or not. He had woken up aching and the headache lasted three days.

“Let’s get on with it, then,” said the first man. He bore a remarkable resemblance to the paintings that decorated the walls. There was a painting of him or his relative with hunting dogs in the bedroom. “It’s a long drive home and I’d like to make it in time for dinner.”

“Be a good boy for the baron, or we’re going to play a game, Erik,” Shaw warned him as they marched downstairs to the examination room.

“Should he be awake for it?” One of the German doctors asked as they stripped and strapped Erik down, but this time, he was only half on the table until he thought he would fall, then his legs were lifted and spread wide, cuffed to a set of stirrups. He strained to close his legs then closed his eyes when he couldn’t, half-expecting his eyelids to be pried open. They weren’t, but the darkness wasn’t comforting when he could hear.

“I would hope so. He should be used to it.”

“Artificial stimulation could be painful,” said a voice Erik recognized, one of Shaw’s doctors.

“I never thought you’d be so gentle,” the words were unmistakeably mocking, “perhaps the rumors about you were all wrong.”

“Erik is,” Shaw interrupted, “quite precious to me. I don’t want him to come to harm. He’s still mine.”

“The question is, I’m not sure how compatible we can be even if he is one.” A hand ran down the inside of one thigh, pausing at his groin. Erik shivered. “He has the right coloring and the eyes _are_ very fine. Open them, then. Let me see again.”

“Do it, Erik.” That was Shaw. Helpless, Erik opened them, then choked out a sound when a hand moved to curl around his cock.

“We’ll do it gently, manually, no instruments, so Erik isn’t harmed. Not what I want at all, if he’s promising as you say,” the hand moved up and down and Erik’s entire body was heating up. He became erect. The baron’s other hand brushed across his chest. His nipples pebbled. Erik let out an involuntary moan.

“Sensitive, as you can see,” he heard Shaw’s cold voice.

“You’re asking me to take a chance. This,” Baron tightened his hand on a down stroke; Erik shuddered violently as the fingers moved to cup him and curled back and pressed, “is promising and perhaps tempting to others, but I just want to know one thing. He is thin. What do you think, doctor?”

He finally removed his hand. A stranger moved into Erik’s view. He had a thin cruel mouth and a gloved hand that was harder than the baron’s. It almost hurt as the fingers poked and probed along his legs and upwards until they focused around his buttocks. Erik didn’t know what it was searching for. “But strong,” the baron’s doctor answered. Erik let out a breath when his hand left. “A healthy slimness. He is only nineteen if Dr. Schmidt’s records are correct, which I believe they are. Young enough to be receptive and old enough that it would be safe. The radiographs show the growth plates had already closed, but he could still fill out a bit more. It shouldn’t affect his fertility. Everything appear to be in working order. You could feel it yourself.” There were two hands, one guiding the other, then pressed hard where something ached and then Erik heard an obscene squelching sound as a digit breached him. “Here, turn, in a bit...” the doctor was saying, but Erik was looking up at Shaw, trying to understand.

His body felt strange. He could no longer feel the metal at his back. It had warmed to body temperature. The finger was touching from the inside, but a word rang in his head. Fertility?

“What’s wrong with him?” The baron asked. He had withdrawn and was wiping his hand on a hankerchief.

Shaw laughed. “I think you may have shocked him. He doesn’t know.”

“Anything?” The baron raised an eyebrow.

“He came to me quite young and was, I assure you, very carefully raised. First, by his own family, of course, then by me. Everything’s carefully monitored- his conversations, his books. I’ve almost never let him out of my sight. I know that he had never needed a new set of sheets at night.”

“A convent education-” The baron breathed. “So delicately bred.”

“Better, I think.” Shaw smiled. “Extraordinary, as I mentioned. He has the languages, too, as you are aware, and a gift in mathematics, lately discovered.”

“Yes,” the baron agreed, looking pleased. “Very rare, very fine. It appears you do have something I want.” He rubbed Erik’s stomach, lingering over the slight indentations of muscle then lower, beneath his navel where the flesh was smoother, softer. “It seems you’re a special one, after all.”

“No,” Erik cried out, but they ignored him. He cried louder, in French, then in English, and thrashed. “Let me go. I’m not his.”

But of course they had the needles already prepared.

-=-=

When Erik woke up again, the world had exploded. He was cocooned: clothes, blankets, arms, and something wonderful.

“Hello, Erik, you’re awake. A few more miles and we’ll be out of that godforsaken forest,” the baron said by his ear, his hand tightening around Erik, “You’re my omega now. My wife would like you, I think. You resemble her, but not too much to make her jealous.”

Erik wet his lips and looked at the scenery rushing past. They were in a motorcar. He could feel the engines and the plates of metal. The baron was taller than him, but not by much. He was broader and had his arms around Erik, but he was not Shaw with his preternatural strength. Pressed so close to him, the danger and weaknesses in the body beside him was obvious.

The baron’s doctor was sitting in front of them, regarding Erik with a critical eye. He reached forward but his employer quelled the motion with a look. His hand fluttered, as if Erik required gestures to understand, “How do you feel?”

“Thirsty,” he replied, and was fed a glass of burgundy. He seldom had alcohol. The taste was awful but the sensation was pleasant. There were sparks jumping under his skin.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Home,” the baron answered. “I think I might have to fill some of the gaps of your education before the breeding can be successful. It’ll be your first time, after all. My doctor tells me your estrus will be sooner than expected.” He snorted. “Sebastian’s always a sly man, but he’s right, you _are_ precious. My wife and I have always wanted children of our own.” He sounded wistful. “I love her too much to risk a woman to jeopardise claims on the estate.”

And Shaw _was_ clever. Shaw was deceitful, but for once, it seemed that it would be to Erik’s benefit. Shaw never told them, Erik realised as the baron talked on about the estate, the house and the fruit gardens, the fields and the village a respectable distance from the city. Shaw never told them he could manipulate metal. He had wanted those men to die. And these men deserved to die, Erik thought, as the baron and the doctors discussed the diet to promote conception: more eggs, lots of fruits for both, fresh eggs andmilk every day for the omega. All the rage and humiliation gathered inside Erik. They were on a dirt road in the middle of a forest. The car swerved.

The wreckage had left him unscathed, but there was blood everywhere. The baron’s head had split open. The smell was nauseating. In a daze, Erik flung open the door, walked a few steps, then bent forward and threw up just as he heard the motor explode behind him.

And then the most crippling pain gripped him by the abdomen. He staggered a few more steps, and fell, staring up at the sun through the leaves until his vision became blurry. I’m going to die, he thought. He didn’t know how long he lay there waiting, until he saw a face.

He thought it was an angel with a halo of flame, coming to save or kill him at last. Deliverance.

His mouth moved for form a word, but no sound came out. A cool hand touched his brow, then his face, then his lips.

He drew one of the slim fingers inside his mouth. His angel made a little gasp of surprise, appeared to fall, before one hand braced herself on his chest. The touch jolted something inside him. Heat bloomed across his skin.

“Please,” he pleaded. He didn’t know what language he was using, but when her mouth fell on his it was like a drink of cool water and when her hand slipped beneath his shirt, it was something very perfect.

He hugged her close and rolled them over. She was in layers. Layers upon wonderful layers, as colorful and as vibrant as a bird. She was warm and muttered soft words in his ear. He must’ve told her his name at one point because she cried “Erik” when their bare flesh touched. She was biting her lip when he entered her and something inside him coiled and released with each frantic shove forward. 

When he woke again, his angel was sleeping beside him. They were naked under a blanket and there was an older woman brushing her red-hair. Above them, there was a canopy of stars.

-=-=

He was with Magda and her family for a year before she gave birth. His body clenched in sympathy during labor as Magda’s hands clamped on his own. By the time their daughter was born, the whole front half of his shirt was wet but he was laughing, because he had a family again.

For six months, he had Magda and his daughter, before they were chased out of the forest and before he convinced Magda to leave with him to go to Israel, their daughter still at his breast. They were near the borders when his angel mete out vengeance.

Magda was an alpha and, as her people’s wont, was restless even with a family. She wanted to leave with Anya. They were still arguing when the fire hit the tenements. He lashed out, forgetting the consequences of his anger. When he remembered, it was too late. Anya was dead and Magda was gone.

He thought to search for her then one day, watching another family, he thought he would be ashamed if he ever saw her again. He wandered across Israel only to learn Schimdt never existed. Not in the Reich’s records, not on any other government’s lists of war criminals. It was as if the man was a figment of Erik’s imagination.

“A different name, perhaps. You were a child,” the people at the agencies told him. There were other, more important men they were pursuing. Erik didn’t dare to tell them that he was with Schmidt until he was grown. They didn’t need to know his humiliation or his ignorance. It was better in Israel. Unlike in the caravans, not everyone know everything about each other and it didn’t matter because in the shared silence, everyone tried to fill what was missing and mend what was broken and did not comment on the means or method.

Israel still maintained taboos regarding alpha and omega relations in concert with male and female ones. There were readily accessible drugs to suppress inconvenient heat cycles but Erik didn’t need them. His heat cycle was irregular even after Magda left, but it wasn’t unusual among his cohort and that he was very fortunate, and, perhaps, the nurse had said with a twinkle in her eye, very sought after that he was a fertile omega. They were rare after the war.

Erik ignored the flirtation. He needed to hunt down Shaw and his friends. In order to search for Shaw, he signed up with the army. During the medical checks he learned he had underwent a couvade with Magda, a sympathetic pregnancy that meant that while he wasn’t pregnant, his phermones would never spike high enough to be maddening for other alphas, which was likely how he could wander through the borders unmolested. He was invisible. It suited everyone’s purpose.

He hunted the men who knew and collaborated with Shaw, because Shaw was real, even if no one wanted to admit it and he was important, to Erik, which was all that mattered. And if his efforts carried him further and further away from sanctioned hunts, each success seemed to mean divine approval and Erik cared less and less of what was allowed and what was not.

His powers were growing stronger and he was drawing nearer to Shaw and having his revenge.

-=-=

Then Erik met Charles Xavier and his own body betrayed him.

-=-=


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik meets Charles. Nothing's what anyone expected.

Off of the coast of Florida, Shaw was composed when he saw him, as if Erik was just an old friend who dropped by for tea. His arms were open as if saying, as he did so many years ago to other men Erik remembered: “So good of you to come at last. I had scarcely dared to hope.”

He tilted his head, scenting the air and his surprise lent Erik a flash of satisfaction before someone started crashing through his mind and his memories with Shaw rose to the surface. Night and open air disappeared. He was in a white windowless room. Erik clutched his head and one of his knees slammed against the deck.

“But how sad, when I spent all that time and effort to keep you well.” Through the haze of agony, Erik still recognized Shaw’s disappointment and hated that there was still a corner of his mind that feared it. “Though perhaps it’s fortunate for me,” Shaw continued, “I-” The sentence choked to a stop the same time as the pain stopped for Erik.

His breathing was labored, but the present returned. He was not a boy. He stood and raised his eyes. The crystalline blur in front of him resolved into a feminine figure with a face. It was not looking at Erik. Dark eyes narrowed at Shaw as the arm stretched out and punched him into the chest.

“No,” Erik shouted, though there seemed to be an echo. The force of the punch knocked him into the sea.

An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Erik had both of his eyes and all his teeth. He saw his mother die, her face in a rictus. He raised his hands. The chains whipped through the surface; Erik saw Shaw’s panic. A life for a life. The chains wrapped themselves around the Caspartina. Splinters of wood crashed into the water, the noise of fire and jetsam almost concealing the engines below. Erik sank and followed: his lungs could be the burnt offering, his whole body, his entire life, his mind- but then his thoughts were not his own.

A voice out of the darkness called him, but Erik ignored it. The voice called him by name as if that would hold him still. Erik continued to strain at the tenuous hold he had on the submarine bearing Shaw away.

He would follow, but the voice didn’t want to let him go.

It realized into arms across his chest and a a chest at his back. Struggling against the body pulling at him and growing distance of the submarine, Erik strength faltered. Black dots hovered at the edge of his mind. “You are not alone,” implored the voice and the words burned across Erik’s darkening thoughts.

-=-=

Gasping, he resurfaced. A child had drawn him away. He was angry at a mere boy, the eyes as wide and as guileless as if a painted theater mask, water silvery on his face, his mouth, his teeth. “You were drowning,” Charles Xavier told him.

And he knew everything, but Shaw was gone.

Aboard the boat, Erik tensed as the captain approached, the gilded threads on his shoulder glittering even under the shadows, but Charles merely said to a couple of women: “We are all right” before shuffling Erik and himself both down the gangway.

Dry, he was older than Erik first thought, but nonetheless a young man with an adolescent face, perpetually expectant. And mad, to jump into the water fully clothed. Erik heard his teeth chatter as they changed. The back of Charles’ shoulders were freckled but smooth. “Stay with me,” He made it sound like a question, as they sat in the captain’s quarters, mugs of tea in hand. “I’m like you. I can’t let you die.”

His words, in the air, retained the same fervency as when they echoed inside his head, of how things _must_ be. Even if Erik was almost sure of Charles’ motives, ,his’ face looked like it was only Erik’s approval he sought. He looked, very much, like a courting alpha. Disturbed, Erik looked away and made no reply.

From the corner of his eye, Charles put his fingers to his forehead. After a moment, his sister came down, tense, a girl trying to be watchful. She stood close to her brother and changed shape until there were two Charles Xaviers, but only one beaming, hoping.

Erik dug his nails into his palms and nodded once. His anger at himself, at Charles, was not gone, but he could wait. They were in international waters; the boat belonged to the United States Coast Guard. The government men were already suspicious. Once ashore, Erik could disappear. There was always tension between branches of government service working together, it would be simple to uncomplicate their lives if he had never been present.

Erik stayed out of sight, but Charles, insistent, made him say again that he would stay to the captain and to the CIA agent he called merely, “Moira” even when she talked about breaking regulations.

“Are you inside my head again?” He sent the thought as he watched Charles in the communication bay, frowning at a message they just received.

Charles smiled. There was a puzzled look from the officer beside him. “Then you’re inside mine,” he replied, enigmatic.

But doors of the government opened for Charles Xavier and bureaucracy moved for him. A flurry of radio calls and several frustrating conversations later, before they returned to port, Erik learned he would be established as a consultant for the United States central intelligence agency. The ink on the paperwork was still wet when he checked into the hotel with the Xaviers, the female CIA agent in tow.

“I think you should keep it, don’t you?” Charles Xavier, when he smiled, which was often, at his sister, at Moira, and even at Erik, smiled as if the world could be content and if it was not, he would make it so.

Wordlessly, Erik folded the papers and placed them in his pocket while Charles watched him with those wide eyes. A strange alpha if he was one, Erik thought, for the first time doubting his reliance on behavioral cues. All Charles’ commands sounded like requests. What would he be like when roused? He wondered if Moira was his omega, but for all her deference to his wishes, he left her alone quite often and quite willingly. They had parted once Erik retrieved his belongings from his hotel and the Xaviers insisted that Erik stayed with them.

“What would you like for dinner?” Charles asked, taking a deep depth of the night air. The sky had a violet blush; shape of palm-trees were inked on the horizon. There was a subtle unreality to the atmosphere Erik disliked.

“You must be hungry.”

He was and his chest ached. His breathing, too, had never went back to normal since he left the waters with Charles Xavier.

“Or would you like a hospital first?”

Of course he heard the thought. Erik still wasn’t sure if it was violation or understanding. “No doctors,” Erik said, and watched the tip of Charles’ tongue sneak out and catch his own upperlip, almost as if he was expecting- what? Erik emitted neither detectable levels of omega phermones nor alpha ones either though his paperwork had assumed the latter designation. He could be anyone and no one and he wasn’t subject It had been useful. “I’ll be fine.”

“I trust you to be certain,” Charles answered. He gestured to his head and wiggled his fingers. “I’ll know.”

But even if Erik was certain of himself, he wasn’t certain of Charles. Everything about Erik should not be everything about him and what he didn’t know himself. He wondered, but Charles’ conversation was innocuous. Charles had a quirk Erik knew but didn’t associate with people and alphas of Charles’ means. Beyond the introduction, Charles talked constantly of the future.

Only one sentence mattered: “We will find Shaw,” Charles said, making it sound as solemn as a promise.

They ate at the hotel restaurant. It was late, the desultory notes from the piano on the stage barely drowned out murmur of low voices and clinking glasses. In the middle of the meal, Charles began toying with his food. He pushed them around his plate until the greens were not touching the sauce and the sauce was not touching the meat.

“You should have more,” Charles said after a while. He had let out a sigh. “You are famished, my friend. Would you like to try mine?”

Erik stared at him, bewildered, as Charles lifted up a forkful from his plate and held it forwards. Slowly, Erik bent his head toward the fork. The smell was pleasantly pungent under his nose. He opened his mouth, the tip of his tongue touched the morsel and a bit of the metal tine; his closed his teeth around it, lowered his lips and drew the food backwards. The taste was surprising. When he swallowed, he heard a sound, a little like a sharp intake of breath.

He glanced up. Charles was staring at him. “Scallops” Charles said, softly. His eyes, too, looked soft. “Supposedly a specialty. Do you like them?”

It wasn’t kosher, but Erik had eaten worse things in the pursuit of Shaw, and the comparison would be an insult. “I’d think you would know,” he replied, letting himself smile and in smiling, a pleasant frisson of warmth began curling upwards his spine. The seasoning of the food in his mouth lingered. The damp shadows inside the part of Charles’ mouth caught his attention. Erik let out a low exhale of breath.

“I don’t,” Charles’s lips curled in synchrony, he laughed aloud. And the moment was gone. “What people can and cannot do or in fact, what they do or do not, have very little with their own personal feelings toward a subject. That is, I know you do not eat them if you can help it, but you’ve never developed feelings for the subject. I’m rambling again, aren’t I? I must be tired.”

They finished their meal without further incident. Raven gave Erik a curious look when she joined them in the lobby.

“You are coming back with us then.” She seemed friendlier than she was on the ship.

“I haven’t changed my mind.” He turned his head toward Charles. “Charles is very convincing”

Raven rolled her eyes. “ _I_ really like you to stay so there’re more of us. Honestly, I prefer Florida to Virginia but CIA doesn’t seem like something he should take on by himself.”

“Raven. They are us, as well,” Charles complained. “We are, in fact, Americans.” Raven made a face. It sounded like the beginning of an old argument. Erik left them to it and promised them his morning without much regret.

"Good night," he thought at Charles in front of his room, testing, and felt the brush of the answer across his mind.

The taste and scent of their dinner seemed to linger inside his mouth. It was hot inside the room. The radio was talking of a heat spell, comparing it to a South American jungle. With a gesture, the windows in his room whispered open. Erik inhaled deeply, then winced.

He sat up. In the bathroom, he saw the bruise as large as his fist forming above the sternum, already a faint purple. He pressed. The pain was clean, originating in the muscles. Nothing was broken. 

He had survived. A poor consolation when Shaw, too, lived. Yet he had the good graces of Charles Xavier, who seemed afraid that Erik could disappear, as if he was hoping and waiting for a physical response. Erik had given up on capturing any alpha’s attention a long time ago and grown used to the idea that there was one more thing that Shaw had taken from him when he set him apart twenty-one years ago, severing all the potential bonds of family, of friendship, of true pairs.

At the very least, Erik would have access to whatever CIA would learn about Shaw. That he was finally worthy of a government’s attention seemed a hollow victory-

Erik could not hope that his body would cooperate, but if Charles did know everything, then it seemed infinitely more precious that he could be content with Erik’s private unhappiness without merely a biological imperative. Even with the windows open, the heat was becoming oppressive, even the sheet felt scratchy against Erik’s bare skin. He threw it off and slept.

-=-=

“He’s with me,” Charles said.

Moira shot him a look. She had been lingering beside Erik and was moving closer. Erik put two more steps between them.

The agent at the desk furrowed his brow, looked at Erik up and down again, and pursed his lips. “It’s all highly irregular. We don’t typically admit foreign consultants in this office.”

He reached to dial a number and began reporting.

Charles was beginning to look impatient, the corners of his mouth dropping slightly. The CIA compound was full of male alphas, their presence obvious and nearly palpable, the air so thick with the miasma of their phermones that even Erik could smell it amidst the ubiquitous cigarette smoke. It was an American peculiarity- the British at least employed obviously female omega secretaries and operators.

“Sit down, agent,” Charles was saying. He had placed his hand on the telephone and clicked off the line.

“You can’t just-” the agent was protesting, then visibly shrunk in on himself, shoulders slumping. He waved a hand, face downcast.

“Charles-” Moira sounded disapproving as they passed through the checkpoint but stopped whatever she was going to say when Charles politely asked her where should they settle for the night and whether they would be able to see the director in the morning.

“What are you doing?” Erik asked quietly as they walked down a corridor. There were government men all around them, half-curious. They were restless. Erik was tense. All of them carried, the bullets in the chambers merely waiting.

“It’s hardly the lion’s den,” Charles replied easily. “It’s more convenient for us if we are here and they’re not hostile. And Erik, perhaps you-” but Charles didn’t finish whatever he was going to say. The conversation turned suddenly and Erik, for once, relented. It was easy to do it around Charles, who seemed, at times, so at ease with the world that Erik thought it could be easy for him as well.

Otherwise, the combination of the spartan accommodations, the locked doors, the series of checkpoints, and the chain-linked fence at the perimeter were unpleasant reminders.They met with McCone, who had difficulty suppressing his fascination. It was only bearable because he was acquiescing to Charles’ requests; slipped into end of every meeting: access to the cafeteria, to the kitchens, to the gym, and beyond. Three days passed; Erik pass gained clearance to roam an entire CIA facility.

He tried not to smile conspiratorially at Charles whenever he saw him. He was certain it was for him, that Charles remembered his promise. If it was unfortunate that he saw Charles less frequently, Erik thought he could sense him even though he was on the other side of the building.

Sometimes he found Raven when he looked for Charles. Objectively, she was beautiful and Erik finds himself trying to approach her though she would be obviously with Hank; her omega pheromones sometimes cutting through the haze of alpha pheromones.

On Sunday, even government building seemed emptier than usual. Erik was heading toward the library when he found Moira in the corridors. Her eyes widened when she saw him and almost ran up to him.

“Here,” she said brusquely, dropping a bottle into his hand, “these are for you. I got them from the infirmary. I told them it was for me.”

Erik looked down at the label: heat suppressants. It was expected that she had a husband, after all, and even if alpha women were not obliged by law to marry omega men they slept with during heat (though they usually did), unplanned pregnancies would be inconvenient a CIA agent.

“I don’t need them,” Erik told her. “I’m not planning to leave for some..time off.”

“No,” Moira repeated. “But you-” She began and actually shivered, then finally explained: “I don’t think they’ll let you hunt Shaw.”

“It’s generally not advised to allow omegas, or,” she continued, wry, “women into the field. An unspoken policy. But,” she looked almost sympathetic, “just in case.”

The official policy dictated no female omegas in combat. It seemed Erik unclear which was the worst offense: omega or female. Only United States had the backward luxury of choosing who could fight their wars. The philosophy that it would be less distracting for the men was clearly not working.

Though mutual alphas seldom attracted, Moira’s skirt was very short.

Erik hand closed around the plastic until it gave under the strain. If Moira knew or suspected, Charles must have told her.

“They,” he emphasized, “are not my superiors.”

Moira frowned and shivered again. “You should go find Charles.”

Charles was in one of the studies not far away. Erik rounded the corridor and encountered a few agents at a vending machine, all were in civilian clothes, their government issued-badges in their pockets. Two were unknown to him.

“Lehnsherr,” one of the strangers said. “That’s a German name. I spent some time there after the war.” He sniffed, nostrils visibly widening. He had a prominent adam’s apple that moved when he took a gulp of air. “East or West?”

“Neither,” Erik said, walking briskly past.

“Own up, now,” he heard one of the other men said behind him. “Told you he’s a spook. Not ours, though.”

“Now he is, if that beta at the reception heard it right.”

“Come on, don’t call him that, he’s just intimidated. It happens to the best of us.”

“Have you seen Dr. Xavier? As small as a woman and as fine as an omega, even McCone wants a piece. He’s kissing the ground he walks on, if not anything else.”

Erik slowed his steps, he almost turned around.

“Seeing and knowing are two completely different things,” said one of the men Erik knew, but he said it quietly, unwilling to contradict.

“Hormones,” the first man snorted. “I always suspected that McCone isn’t he say what he is. It’s all top secret projects with him, and nothing useful so far. Wonder what else he gets around pushed into doing. Did you know what I had to do in Miami to get the Feds-”

By then, he had spotted that Erik had stopped. He smiled: a handsome man, sharp-featured and clean-shaven, eyes like chipped ice.

“Come on then, Lehnsherr. Read your file. Never had a Jew before.” He took a deep breath. “And no suppressants. You must be hot for it. Biology never lies. We’ve all be sent up and down the coasts on your behalf and just dying for a look at what MacTaggert brought back and kept hidden away.” He wet his finger, put into the air, and licked it. Leered: “No wonder. Are they breeding you?”

It only took three steps. Erik punched him. The agent didn’t duck fast enough. It glanced over his cheek then he doubled over as Erik’s second punch landed solidly on his liver. His friend was trying to get a hold on Erik by his shoulders. Erik grunted as a knee connected with his chest, almost winding him. Someone was grabbing him around the waist; a nose shoved into his neck; Erik moved his elbow back and heard a satisfactory crack.

They didn’t have their guns, but there were metal on the trousers, belts, wrist, and mouth. Erik was vaguely aware that the fourth agent was running toward the phone at the end of the corridor but froze. In fact, all four of them froze: eyes open but unseeing, a raised fist pausing in mid-air. Erik staggered as the sudden shift in momentum.

He righted himself, got the hair out of his eyes, then turned around to say: “Charles, I was looking for you.”

“I know.” Charles had an indecipherable expression on his face as he came closer and surveyed the scene. His hand was still by his forehead, only the tension around his mouth showed that it was more than an idel gesture.

The excitement from the fight was still with him. Erik surged forward.Up close, Charles Xavier was smaller than Erik imagined. Bracketed within Erik’s arms, he could be hidden. His hair felt very soft against Erik’s face and his mouth very beautiful, colored as if it could drip blood. Charles looked up just as Erik gave in to the impulse to taste. Their mouths met and parted. Charles’ tongue slid into his mouth and curle around his.

The memory of their first night in Florida came to mind, the taste and smell as vivid as if they were there again, Charles offering from his own plate. The scent had been Charles’, headily mixed with salt water and cologne. A frisson of warmth blazed up Erik’s back. Something tight inside his chest relaxed as the kiss grew longer. Erik was practically pressing Charles into the wall, one thigh thrust between his legs. Charles hands were clasping him against himself, slipping lower until Erik could feel them tugging slightly at his belt.

“You want me,” Erik said hotly against that distracting mouth. He nipped a lip. Charles gasped. Erik felt an answering hardness against his groin. The world was still frozen around them. As your mate, went unspoken. Charles’ fingers clenched on Erik’s buttock, the sensation so surprising that Erik stepped away. The shock of his own action left his heart beating unpleasantly fast. Sweat was breaking out of his forehead. His hands, too, felt damp. He hadn’t felt so afraid since, since-

“Yes,” Charles admitted, almost inaudible. His eyes were wide and dark, pupils blown. He reached out, then dropped his arm. “ I want you. I’m sorry. I didn’t realise. I thought-”

“What?” Erik asked, bitter. The rush of having Charles enclosed in his arms was still present but he could no longer bear standing so close to him. “That I needed to be bred?”

-=-=

Erik was looking at the government badge he had lifted from one of the agent when Charles knocked on his door. The files had been ready. Perhaps, subconsciously, he had always known what would pass.

He replaced the badge in his pocket before opening the door.

“I came to apologise, again,” Charles said. He closed the door then carefully, almost, he stepped out of Erik’s reach. “But I don’t want to. That is, I thought you can’t be bred,” Charles informed him, watching Erik carefully. “It happens. You were at the camps.”

“You know what happened,” Erik said. Charles knew everything about him, after all. The understanding had never felt like such violation.

“But trauma, even mental trauma, can have unforeseen physiological effect. Europe’s population depletion after the war was not entirely due to combat. The Dutch Famine has left an entire generation of children who were smaller than their parents and mostly betas. In other countries, even without famine, there had been-”

“I’m not a sterile omega,” Erik interrupted. “You know.” It was half an accusation, half a confession. He waited to see what Charles would say.

Charles blushed instead. “You don’t-” he began, then seemed to collect himself. “You have never experienced a second estrus.”

“You know why.” He still couldn’t bear to say his daughter’s name.

Charles shook his head. “Even in the most extreme cases, the effects of a couvade should’ve worn off after the first few years so that a pair could have a second child or the choice of a second pairing.”

Choice, as far as Erik knew, had little to do with it. In the years that followed their parting, he grew certain that it was only his scent had lured Magda to his side. She had been even younger than him and travelling with her family. It had taken them almost an entire day to find Magda and Erik; then they were wed, as the custom it was among her people And Erik, Erik had needed people.

“What are you saying?”

“I must apologise,” Charles said. “In retrospect, I should not have presumed. I’ve never encountered another mutant other than Raven and she’s my sister so I wasn’t sure if we were just atypical representations, or it’s in fact, part of our mutations, evolution, or evidence that our abilities might tradeoff of metabolic energies devoted to reproduction." He lowered his voice and looked up at Erik from beneath his eyelashes. Erik pitied anyone who had to take tutorials with this Professor Xavier. "There were always people willing for a bit of flirtation, but no omega I had ever been with had ever triggered a limerent, that is, an attachment that could physically manifest-”

Charles had never knotted anyone.

“You think I ..triggered.”

Charles shook his head. “No. Yes. I don’t know.” His voice was almost pleading. “I sensed you in the water and when those men were on you I-”

It was like a bucket of ice. “You can stop time.” Erik said.

Charles actually seemed startled by the question. He paused before he answered: “Time is a matter of perception.”

“You use the word “telepath” like it already has a meaning.” Charles actually look bewildered “The CIA doesn’t like to admit to ignorance, so they never ask and even if they wanted to, I know you can read and send thoughts.” Erik paused. “I didn’t know you can change them.”

Charles withdrew. He ran his hand through his hair. “Erik, my friend-” For once, Charles didn’t know what to say to him. Erik realised that all this time, Charles had been saying everything he had needed to hear, but there was nothing he could say to Erik that would deny his own abilities.

“I should go,” Charles said. He was trembling slightly as he let himself out. Erik own body felt overheated, open. It didn’t hurt, but he ached with the thought.

The cold water in the shower couldn’t sluice off this desire, even if it was his own. Biological imperative wasn’t so imperative, after all. He could laugh at the thought if it didn’t hurt.

He wanted Charles Xavier and it would be so easy to give in. They would only be fulfilling the instincts of men and women, alpha and omegas and betas as people have done since civilization began. Erik mouth was still swollen with their kiss; even the shower, against reason, still smelled faintly of Charles.

He closed his eyes. He entertained the possibility that Charles had returned, sneaked past the door, into the bathroom and was standing behind him. Erik let his hand trail below his stomach until it loosely circled around his cock, where it was thickening rapidly. With his other hand, he reached behind himself. He had never wanted to try this, but he was slippery with more than soap and even clenching against the intrusion, one finger slid in easily, the walls of his body sensitive to each subtle movement of the digit. Biting his lip, he imagined what it would be like something thicker than a finger. Something that was part of Charles for him to keep, even for a little while. The first time would hurt, whether or not he was built for it.

He wondered if Charles was reading his mind then decided that it didn’t matter. He imagined putting let his kisses paint over the unmarked skin of Charles’ throat and let Charles’ mouth cover his again.

“Do you enjoy this?” he thought viciously: Charles chest against his back, an arm across his chest, naked as newborns, floating in a dream that had never existed-

He braced his arm against the wall of the stall, withdrew his hand from himself. He opened his eyes then ruthlessly brought himself off, his hand uncertain except where it got him the same pleasant sensation He imagined no one but his own hand, focused on his own pleasure, the purity of it being his own.

He would leave tonight. Erik felt dizzy there was a hollowness that had lodged inside his chest. He pressed his hand against his chest. The bruise was healing; it had turned a deep dark red.

-=-=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything Charles posits regarding a/o and mutations is, if not completely fiction (mutations, a/o) slightly ahead of the time for 60s science. Later on, Dutch Famine would be cited as evidence for environmental influence on inheritance and a theory of the life history theory (originally from evolutionary ecology) would have growing evidence that all of life-form energetics are primarily devoted to: growth, maintenance, and reproduction.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are strangers in a foreign country with an outdated map. Or, Charles’s and Erik’ s sex talk leaves something to be desired.

-=-=

“I won’t break,” Erik told Charles when he cracked open a window in the car, letting out the air conditioning. A smell of baked earth diffused through the small space.

“Of course you will,” Charles said, hands low on the wheel, “or I will. Either way, it’s instinct. Scientific expeditions are notorious for subjective data collection because the investigators couldn’t account for their desired outcomes.”

“I don’t remember saying that finding our own kind involved experimenting on our own kind,” Erik said testily,still unable to reconcile a man who could read everyone’s thoughts to a man who could so easily put together words absent of consideration for anyone. The knowledge that Charles spoke like a scientist because he was one didn’t make it easier to bear.

“We are all nature’s experiments, observer phenomenon, Erik,” Charles hands had a dangerous tendency to leave the steering wheel of their Citroen when he talked; his eyes, searingly blue even against the open landscape, wandered from the road, too, to focus on whomever he was talking to, which belonged to another category of problems for Erik; he steadied the car from careening off the shoulder into the cornfields as Charles continued, “though what I’m proposing is actually a natural experiment, strictly observational and descriptive in nature, unfortunately thus vulnerable to bias and all manners of unknown variables.”

“A bit forward for a first meeting, don’t you think?”

“It would have to be framed to be age appropriate, of course.”

There was no “of course” about it, but they had been on the road for almost a week, and it was becoming glaringly obvious that intimate relations among mutants worked differently from the humans.

Of the people they visited, few were willing to subject themselves to the scrutiny of the government. Mutants or not, even Erik winced inwardly when Charles slipped in references about bonding, about alpha-omegas, about lovers and estrus to a rather stunned looking young couple, one of whom had very quick reflexes, the other a version of a form of invisibility that was more like camouflage which they used sparingly in their prettily appointed urban home. Government, he had thought viciously at Charles, did not belong in people’s bedrooms or _reproductive affairs_. At least that time, Charles had the grace to look abashed.

They left their card on the table along with the half-finished tea and crumbs of lemon cake. There was no doubt that people with homes and families, with McCarthyism still fresh in memories, would ever call a number that connected to men who asked them about being different in their most private lives.

It was better that Charles theorized with only Erik as the audience. He was less likely to launch into his latest theory to complete strangers.

Furthermore, alone and just with Erik, the stilted formality of his speech disappeared. The strangeness of his Americanisms in a British accent became more obvious. Like other aspects about Charles, it was almost like a distant echo of Erik’s own disjointed self. But better, because Charles was real and solid and not Erik at all. The youth in his face, the curve of his lips, the shape of his hands as he gestured or tapped out the beat to the latest sensation on radio. Erik wanted every part of Charles to be close to him, on him. Sometimes it was difficult to remember why they must sleep in separate beds at night, a space of tantalizing darkness between them.

He considered keeping the windows closed some nights and just let Charles scent overwhelm him. It was becoming easier to let himself imagine how their minds could slip free from their moorings, giving way to the pleasure of sex, and Charles in the morning and all the mornings afterwards, unable to leave him. The scenarios had an unhappy edge to it when he recalled it; as with other confusing memories that were more like figments and fantasies, Erik ignored it.

When Charles started talking about zoological expert he knew at London University, however, Erik snapped: “We are _not_ sharing private information as _data_ , anonymous or not,”

Charles acquiesced, easily enough. His eyes returned to the road and fell silent. But Erik knew, as well a Charles did, that amidst the miracles of finding so many _like them_ , the infinite variety of mutant powers and attitudes, there was only one reason that Charles, the geneticist, was so taken with alpha-omega relationship in mutants.

They just don’t talk about it.

Charles played the scientist. Erik played the mutant moralist. It was an unpleasant game, but Erik had never known games to be otherwise.

-=-=

In Chicago, they ended up in the hotel bar after arrival. Cities smelled worse than countrysides. Cities were also much more forgiving of strangers who could look unaffected as an alpha and omega entered, clearly in the throes of synchronized estrus. His hand on her waist, her back, her shoulders while her hands fussed over his collar, his tie, his cuffs. The sat side by side at the table, her bare brown shoulder against his wool jacket, while the waiter, a beta, poured them champagne and pointedly ignored the man’s whispered questions and the woman’s quickfire explanations of the differences between salad forks, relish forks, fish forks, and serving forks. She wore her heavy diamond necklace easily, he looked, and acted, like startled sheep with watery blue eyes, whenever he was not looking at her.

“To a happy anniversary.” Charles toasted them, quietly, as every alpha in the restaurant started obviously scenting, their blood stirred.

It was late. They were at the hotel bar. Not many unattached female omega were out. At least, not the sort to whom one could easily make a promise of fulfillment. The male omegas looked as frustrated as the alphas. Erik couldn’t help noticing that a few men nodded at each other before heading to the restroom. One alpha walked past Erik, the pheromones wafting off of him almost overwhelmed the taste of whisky on Erik’s tongue. He turned his head and looked at Erik briefly and rather confusedly, before passing him.

“Are you all right?” Charles asked; then, unhelpfully, put his hand on his back.

“I can smell him,” Erik hissed. He never could before, at least, not so strongly.

“Ah,” Charles said, then nothing else. His hand on Erik’s back began to rub in circles.

Erik closed his eyes, letting his body enjoy the contact before pulling away slightly. The hand slid down, almost curved to his waist. Erik held his breath and sighed as the hand dropped away.

His mouth was dry. “Charles-” he began, but Charles wasn’t looking at him. He was hailing the bartender and ordered two more for them and sending a cocktail to the far end with “lovely red to its like at the end.”

The bartender smirked knowingly as he delivered their drinks, but Erik caught Charles’ arm just as he begun to slide off the stool.

“Drink with me,” he said, and tightened his hand until Charles’ gaze returned to him. “We have an early start tomorrow.” He tried a smile. It faltered as Charles resumed his seat beside Erik and took a deep swallow of scotch. Three fingers’ worth downed in one go and he ordered another while Erik studied the line of his profile, the play of of shadows on his cheek, the movement of the line of throat. He wondered if Charles would let him sketch him. How _much_ he wished to sketch Charles, not only his face, but linger over each line of his body...He had felt it pressed against him in that hallway, hidden beneath jacket, vest, shirt..

His hand slipped slightly on the cut-glass as he lifted it. He took a sip while Charles beckoned the bartender again, still not quite looking at Erik. They drank, the minutes slipping away.

“My friend,” Charles slammed down his glass, the movement sharp. He turned, color high on his face even in the dimmed lighting. “It has been a month.”

“Three weeks,” corrected Erik. It was early March when they left Virginia. It wasn’t quite April.

“A month,” Charles repeated. There was a clip to his voice. “Are you going for a Guinness record or is this some other ability you have?”

“What?” Erik, at a loss, recognized only that Charles was angry.

Charles lowered his voice to a fierce whisper: “It lasts a week. Two, accounting for irregularities.”

It, Erik realised, did not refer to their road trip, expedition, recruitment effort. He wanted to be angry, but Charles’ reminder only made him remember how much he wanted him. Still wanted him though heat should’ve ended, _if_ he was normal. Human. His mouth parted; a shiver ran down his spine. It meant- The bartender gave them a curious look. “Am I so unbearable?” he asked softly. He thought: Did you lose the game? Or did I?

But Charles didn’t answer. A moment later, his hand was wrapped another glass, a broad thumb chasing down a bead of moisture. Erik wished, a little meanly, that he could feel the thrum of glass instead of metal.

Charles kept drinking, but he didn’t leave Erik’ side.

-=-=

“There was even a paper. Or rather, a monograph: _Use and Abuse of the Greek Alphabet_ , I think it got it published in some obscure journal.” Charles was slurring slightly, “A friend of mine at Oxford wrote it. He was very into it, you know.”

“Alphabets? Alphas?” Erik couldn’t smile. It was too much to hope for. Of course Charles had others. He had told him then never mentioned it again. How could he have not remembered?

“Not Greek. No,” Charles laughed, not listening. His eyes closed as he lay against the pillow. “Definitely not. He was horrific at it, said he’ll just hire an interpreter. Monographs. He wrote them. Every subject under the sun: women’s suffrage, French violinists, the gold standard. It was the sort of family with crusaders for ancestors. The alpha or omega status was secondary to how many chevaliers you could count in the lineage. It’s not much spoken about, but they could be either alpha or omega, to keep the lines noble, of course, though the genetic bottleneck could be unfortunate. The madness of King George might as well be an accumulation of genetic errors down the generations.”

Erik sighed. Charles, drunk, tended to lecture in a meandering manner, as though the presence of alcohol in his system finally permitted his thoughts to wander. The hotel suite had enjoined rooms. They had opened the connecting door, curious, and didn’t close it before they left to find, no one, as it turned out- as the mutant was all of a fat happy two year old with doting parents.

Charles could probably make it to his bed unaided, but it seemed strange that there would be a sitting room between them instead of the scant steps between motel beds or, one memorable time, the straw pallets in the attic of a barn. Erik couldn’t help feeling that the luxury the city provided deprived him somehow, so he was lingering, not quite willing to leave.

“For a beta, he had a preternatural instinct for motivations and emotions arising from alpha-omega bonds, or lack of them,” Charles was saying, his shoulders settling deep into the pillows. “He thought alpha and omega are atavistic taxons. None of the species of higher primates and old world apes experience estrus. To him, it was backward that the _homo sapiens_ do. No one in heat could be called wise. He told me alphas and omegas are inherently inferior to betas because biology clouds the mind from reason.” Charles paused, then sighed, turning his head slightly so he was looking at Erik, “I laughed at him. Betas were rare. Alpha-omegas compulsions diversify the gene pool, reduces social prejudices, and as much as reason suffers during periods heat, it also allows people to commit great and stupidly courageous deeds. Logic and reason aren’t wisdom.”

Charles fell silent. Erik waited. When the other man spoke again, it was so quiet that he wondered whether it intended an audience. There was a stray sweep of hair across his forehead, almost touching his brow. “But I was nineteen, young and sentimental, still convinced that love is Alpha and Omega,” Charles’ breath hitched, “I was still hopeful-”

Erik startled.“What?“

Charles curled sideways on the bed. Dropping his cufflinks to the floor, Charles kicked off a shoe and made an odd, squirming motion. The other shoe stayed, his socked foot ineffectual against the laces. Erik knelt to untie it for him and eased it off. His thumb caressed the hard swell of bone as the shoe thumped onto the carpeting. He could feel Charles’ pulse through his thin dress socks in the dip of the hollow beneath his ankle.

There was a sharp inhale from the bed.

“Erik, my body’s drunk, but my mind is not. You’re kneeling by my bed. It lends to suggestion.” The foot in Erik’s hand twitched. “Go away?”

“What else did his monographs say?” he asked. Erik’s hand moved beneath Charles’ trouser cuff, his finger on the border between sock and leg. Charles didn’t move away. “Your friend who’s into alphas? What did he write?” Erik swallowed. He felt a bit dizzy. They hadn’t turned on the lights as they came in. The room was cast in shadow. The city lights through the voile curtains were ghostly. His own voice seemed far away: “In his monographs?”

“Not alphas in particular,” Charles said, disturbingly calm. “But he had a theory that all ancient civilizations that grew into empires had strict social mechanisms that regulated heat cycles without distinction between alphas and omegas, which didn’t come into being until the Middle Ages, so that even amidst war, the dangers of depopulation or social unrest would be minimized. And,” Erik could hear the hesitation in his voice, “that there are always enough of a government which could function. However, even alphas experience a version of the heat where they become more potent or receptive, which meant even when the rare all alpha armies marched to war. Erik-” He stopped abruptly.

Erik licked his lips. His stomach fluttered. There was an ache beneath his breastbone, a sense of a shadow splintering apart, leaving a hollow behind. He needed the words even though he didn’t know where they would lead.“Go on.”

Charles continued, voice low, as if the subject must be approached gently, reverently, “the heat cycles were mostly unsynchronized, but only in the beginning, like with alpha-omega pairs.” Charles drew an arm over his face. Erik leaned over until his breath touched Charles’ exposed inner arm: “Even if alpha pairs can’t knot-”

Charles stuttered at the word. They were hardly schoolboys, but Erik’s face grew warm. His stomach tightened. His hand inched upward, caressed Charles’s calf. The muscle twitched then tensed. Stumbling backwards on reflex, Erik let go and narrowly missed getting kicked in the head as Charles swung both legs out of bed and stood.

“I’m going to have a shower,” Charles declared to the far wall. Erik was aware of his watch, his belt. Still on the ground, he pulled at them toward himself, not strongly. Charles remained still. “You are-” Charles stopped. Then, not unkindly, “It’s been a very long day for us both.”

“With too much alcohol at its end?” Erik asked: bitter, facetious. He let Charles go.

Charles ran a hand through his own hair. “Something like that.” Then quietly, but firmly, shut Erik at the other side of the door.

-=-=

Erik returned to his own room, stripped, then entered the shower. He didn’t turn on the lights, his skin appeared gray and dead with the light percolating through the half-closed door as he scrubbed blindly, the washcloth almost painful, as if he could erase the previous moments and slough off the part of himself -- a projection from the ten thousand years of human civilization -- with water and soap.

He stayed until the water grew cold. Goosebumps shivered into existence as he strode across the living room and waited, quietly, on Charles’ bed. The pillows still smelled faintly of alcohol and Charles’ sweat. His hands trembled slightly atop of the covers. He stilled them.

“It doesn’t help,” Charles said as he came out. He had been hiding, Erik realised, or merely giving him another chance to leave. He was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. He sat down gently on the bed, as if afraid of jostling Erik, as if the precarious equilibrium between them had not already been unbalanced.

“What doesn’t?”

“Mind over matter,” Charles answered. “There are no physics of thought, but if there is, the laws would be similar as that of thermodynamics: thoughts could not be destroyed, but only changed in expression.”

“Perhaps it’s merely the expression I want changed,” Erik returned. He did not wish to be bred, but in the very least, they could have whatever this could be between them. Desire had remained outside of their bodies’ compulsions..

A water droplet slid down from his hair, sticking his shirt to his skin in its trail downward his back.

“Then what are you doing in my bed?” Charles asked quietly. “I had asked you to leave, as my friend.”

“You didn’t,” Erik reminded him. “Can I still not be your friend, after?” They were mutants. Whatever they were and whatever they do would be beyond humanity’s past.

“Would you take the chance?” But Charles was losing ground with every word. Erik was drawing him down, towards himself, though Charles wore no metal. It was as if it was his blood that was heeding Erik’s call, blushing toward the surface. His face was flushed and his mouth wonderfully warm.

Erik wrapped his arms around Charles’ shoulders, the strength of them reassuring and sending a pleasurable thrill through him. “I trust you,” he whispered against Charles’ ear when they parted, almost breathless, “to hear me even when I’m silent.”

A request. A question. He had asked it of the empty sky, the stale air, in all the languages of his childhood and adolescence.

This time, the quiet Yes and Always were more than an echo of his own thoughts.

-=-=

Charles placed a finger stroked his neck. He put his mouth on the pulse there, breathed hotly on it, and Erik thought he was dissolving. His nerves were lit, his limbs a mercurious riot of sensations as Charles hands rucked up his shirt, exposed his burning skin to the air and then clothed each bared inch, too slowly, with wet kisses.

Erik’s eye fell half-closed as he felt Charles’ lips, Charles’ tongue on his skin, feathering upwards, redrawing his body for him until he felt his hand on his jaw, tracing the soft underside of his throat. His other hand was carding through his hair. Time dragged on, as sweet and as thick as honey.

His felt his face pull into a smile as Charles’ breath tickled in the soft space low on his ear. A thumb traced the corner of his mouth, Erik turned his head, and felt it smooth over his lower lip. He parted his mouth, drew it within, tasting the salt of the skin.

In front of him, Charles’ eyes had darkened, blue flowers in the shadows. In the next moment, his hand on Erik’s jaw tightened, his other hand gripped his shoulder, fingers digging deliciously into the muscle as their mouths sealed over each other. Charles’ mouth then slipped wetly over jaw, neck, collar, before returning and licking Erik’s mouth open and thrusting inside. A thread arousal curled tighter and tighter at the base of Erik’s spine.

Their lower bodies were shifting, crowding together even as Charles’ tongue curled expertly, dirtily, against his, licking the roof of his mouth, the edges of his teeth, the line of gum and the tender space beneath his tongue. He wanted Charles closer. Waves of heat buffeted his side where the hand had left his face, nails lightly grazing the bared skin. Sliding his leg upwards, dragging against the fabric of Charles’ shorts, he hitched his leg across the other man’s hip and whimpered into Charles’ mouth as their groins rubbed over each other, the damp fabric frustrating and arousing at the same time.

They were both panting by the time they parted for breath. Charles looked down at him, his face intense, curious and oddly _fond_. Brushing away a strand of hair that had fallen onto face, he started pulling at Erik’s shirt.

“Let’s get this off,” Charles muttered as he sat up, but with a twist and stretch of a smoothly muscled torso, he took off his own t-shirt, throwing it to the side and he almost naked between Erik’s thighs, his cock a beautiful obscene shape in the dark. Erik reached for him.

“Darling,” Erik saw a corner of a broad smile before Charles had his hands on his shirt and Erik became briefly tangled, “let me help you with that.”

He laughed within the cotton confines, the sound muffled and echoing, answered from without.

Then the sight that greeted him was Charles was on his knees, now entirely nude. He was taking Erik’s erection in hand. The sight and the _touch_ was so arousing that Erik _hurt_ from how hard he was. He groaned aloud, certain that he was leaking onto the sheets. He was wet and open and Charles was watching him, the focus of his eyes slightly lost as he palmed Erik’s cock, his balls, fingers slipping behind the scrotum and _sliding_ up the back of his thighs.

Erik didn’t know what to do with his hands. They tried to touch Charles, but a thumb over the head of his cock had him gasping. He fell backwards on his elbows, thrusting upwards for a moment before he had to twist his head away. Then his entire body followed the motion, his shoulders leading until he had twisted himself onto his front, his head low, his back arched and thighs spread.

Saliva pooled in his mouth. He was kissing the back of his own hand when Charles draped himself over his back until Erik thought their hearts had synchronized their rhythms. The thumps and pulses, disappeared when Charles bit his shoulder, gently, but enough to make Erik feel empty, his lower body slick and tingling in impatience..

“My body won’t be sober for a while yet,” Charles huffed, but his hand was there, slipping down until it was between his legs, just his fingertips. Erik could hear the smile in his voice, in his thought, teasing, the invisible presence of his mind almost palpable, “You don’t know what I want to do to you like this, but you’re always the better strategist.”

Erik bit his lip as a finger brushed over his opening. He could feel moisture clinging and then dripping down his legs. He gasped when Charles inserted his finger, twisting it for a while until he moved the second one in, rubbing and caressing his body from the inside.

“God, you are tight, so wet” Charles said above him after a while. Erik didn’t think he had meant to speak it aloud, because his voice was so low, a husk that sent another bolt of arousal through him.

Erik squeezed his eyes closed, tried to relax and writhe into the touch at the same time. The sensations were more intense, then there was a starburst behind his eyes and he let out a whimper, thrust himself back so forcefully he wanted to cry aloud. He felt stretched and tender, yet wanting more. He tilted his hips; Charles’ worked in the fingers further in, pressing at that exact spot.

The hand cupping his stomach slipped to his erection, gripping it tightly, then slowly, Erik’s awareness, latched onto the low groans behind him, deciphered two words.

“Turn around,”

It felt wrong, but Erik couldn’t help it. The imperative was terrible. It was frightening.It must be followed.

“What are you doing?” he asked, on his back, breathing hard. He could see his cock, curving toward his stomach, and Charles leaning over it, damp tendrils of hair curling on his forehead, his face flushed, his smell dizzying.

Charles gave him a smile, wicked in that schoolboy’s face, and reached behind him. Erik gave another involuntary shudder at the touch of a fingertip against his hole. He ached. He needed. And Charles knew; he was biting his lip while Erik tried to roll into the spread of Charles’ hand. .

“Don’t come, yet” Charles said, and brought his hand, almost glistening, onto himself.

Erik stared, transfixed, his mouth dry as Charles reached behind Erik again-- sending his body into another violent shudder -- and repeated the motion, transferring, oh god, until Charles was wet between his thighs, the shadow and highlight on the lines of muscle doing nothing to detract from the knowledge that Erik’s scent was painting him so blatantly.

“You are going to roll me over,” Charles told him, perhaps. He might have mentioned Oxford. It wasn’t clearly what happened, only that Erik had him in his arms, beneath him. He stared at Charles, who licked at his mouth. Erik kissed him again and rocked forward, almost involuntarily, his cock was fitted between Charles’ legs. Gripped by the wet smoothness at the inside of his thighs, Erik snapped his hips forward again, then it became impossible to stop. Charles hands brushed up Erik’s torso, loosely holding onto his waist, and then more tightly held onto the jut of bone of his hip, then roamed almost wildly where they could reach, fingers reaching the tension in Erik’s buttocks with each motion.

Erik was breathing his mouth, climax building inside him, pulling at him though he was resisting, eager to chase the tight and aching pleasure forever. But the strain burned, he came, the sight of Charles’ darkened eyes etched behind his eyelids.

Afterwards, he lay ontop of him still, his limbs slumbering without him. “Is that your solution?” he murmured, rolling aside as Charles cleaned them with a corner of a blanket.

“Later,” Charles said, yawning, then threw away the blanket to the floor and drawing up the sheet They were warm enough.

-=-=

“You would be wanting...” she let the word twist into the air, disapproval evident despite the painted eyes and painted smile.

Charles gave her a smirk. It was impossible to be apart. Only the noxious fumes of perfumes, sweat, and chemical detergents kept Erik from asking Charles to roll him over, to knot him _properly_ while they waited on that cheap red bed with the satin pillows. Everything was a tease: the fabric of his shirt, Charles’ voice, the press of his shoulder against his. The perfect greed between them remained keener than ever. A small, dark corner of his mind was upset, dissatisfied, and seemed willing to remind him constantly what he had given up.

It was a relief to see her wings. A sort indefinable pleasure blooms in his chest every time he saw another one like them. Angel would take the train back to Virginia.

“So is it like that with all of us then?” she asked at the station, a small pack by her side. She had an odd look on her face. “Figured I can ask now that I’m finally on my way. Better be warned if there’s another one at the other end.”

“Like what?”

Angel jerked her head toward Charles, who was in the phonebooth. “Or is it just like that with you?”

Erik frowned.

She slid her gaze toward Charles again. “I’m not exactly alpha. So, where he’s sending me? Full of alphas, but heh, why shouldn’t I believe him and for some reason, I do. He’s going to keep me safe even when he’s not there.”

Erik made no reply.

“You won’t keep him, you know.”

Erik slanted her a look.

“What? You think just because I’m a beta I’m an idiot with no sense of smell? The way you cats act. I’ve been working in that place for a while. I’ve seen and smlled all sorts of things. He’s scent is fading and you are still-” She made a movement with eyes and mouth that made Erik turn away, absurdly uncomfortable.

What did it matter. Charles and he belonged together. Whatever desperation Angel was sensing, she wouldn’t be able to interpret. They were different and better, beyond the understanding of men. They were a new species coming into its own.

-=-=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Use and Abuse of the Greek Alphabet” is from unforgott3n, used with permission.
> 
> In the real world, humans and species of apes are in the minority of mammals which do not go into heat. Whether a “estrus” cycle exists for humans (that is, women) is sometimes a subject for contention by physical anthropologists. Hormone cycles exist in men as well, FYI.
> 
>  _homo sapiens_ actually does mean “wise man” in Latin. Incidentally, _homo superior_ means “better/higher man”.
> 
> “Love is Alpha and Omega” is a quote from George Bernard Shaw, which I took grossly out of context(emphasis mine): “Young and excessively sentimental people live on love, and delight in poetry or fine writing which declares that **love is Alpha and Omega** ; but an attentive examination will generally establish the fact that **this kind of love** , ethereal as it seems, is merely a symptom of the drugs I have mentioned, and does not occur independently except in those persons whose normal state is similar to that induced in healthy persons by narcotic stimulants.” -- _On Going to Church_
> 
> Blue flowers (cornflowers) symbolism for love, desire, unreachable etc of German, pre-WWII origin.
> 
> My apologies for the tardiness of this chapter. I got a bit stuck. Next one should be quicker. Next week, in fact.


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